Orchids, the world’s largest and most diverse family of flowering plants, grow in deserts, in tropical forests, and on mountaintops. They cling to whatever they can – rocks, trees, crevices – and draw sustenance from air and water, letting their roots dangle. As the daughter of an orchid curator, Kathryn Jones closely observed these fascinating plants and found guidance for her own life, navigating grief and loss, adapting to change, and seeking solace in the natural world. An Orchid’s Guide to Life is a rich tapestry of poems that, like the flower spike of a Phalaenopsis orchid, reaches for light and with resilience and desire, blooms.
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Kathryn Jones is a poet, journalist, and essayist who grew up around orchids. For many years her father was the curator of orchids at the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center in Corpus Christi. Observing them at the Samuel Jones Orchid Conservatory named for her father and cultivating orchids herself gave Jones insights into a mysterious and exotic plant that transcends outer beauty and reveals truths about the inner human world.